


Of Love

by Zelinkie



Series: Aftermath [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Longshot - Freeform, Oneshot, Trauma, implied nsfw, implied sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28541388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelinkie/pseuds/Zelinkie
Summary: Link returns to Ordon, but someone still lingers in his mind.
Relationships: Link & Midna (Legend of Zelda), Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Ilia, Link/Midna (Legend of Zelda), Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Aftermath [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090955
Comments: 13
Kudos: 31





	Of Love

The mirror shattered.

Completely and utterly destroyed, Midna had left him breathless for the last time. The lonely mirror frame, now without a mirror to hold, left the Princess and her Hero standing there like fools.

Until he dropped to his knees and cried. His sobbing filled the otherwise empty air, hot and dry, and he couldn’t bring himself to even say her name.

The Hero, brought to his knees, not by the enemy but by love.

His hands roamed the dirty floor beneath him, searching for something, anything, of hers to hold and cradle in his arms, but the shards of the mirror had faded and there was nothing left of her.

He felt a hand graze his shoulder, doubtful and tentative. “Hero,” the Princess murmured, and she said nothing more.

He did not think that she could understand his agony.

When he finally ran out of tears to shed, night was encompassing the desert and a chill hung in the wind. The Princess of Hyrule had beckoned him to stand up from the floor and so he did. He met her gaze and sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she said to him, “but look upon your forehead.”

“I can’t.” Was she mocking him? Telling him to look at something with which he needed a mirror?

“Of course,” she muttered, and her hand brushed his hair back so she could look. “I think you will be pleased at what you find crowning your head when you get the chance.” 

“I… we…”

“We should go,” she finished for him. 

They turned their backs on where the mirror once glimmered in the sunlight and didn’t look back.

The Princess insisted that he spend a night in the ruined castle, and he was puzzled as to why because he had expressed to her multiple times his desire to return home. He wanted nothing more than to sit beside the Ordon Spring and mourn until he rotted into the earth. 

As he undressed that night, down to nothing but his simple white shirt and pants, a knock came at the doors of the chamber. He opened it a crack and peered through the small opening only to be greeted with the shadowy face of Princess Zelda, lit by the soft light of the candle she held close.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No.”

He stared at her. Then why was she here?

“May I come in?” she asked.

“Sure.” He opened the door more and stepped to the side. When she entered the room, she pushed the door shut and faced him.

“Hero… I do not know how to ask this of you.”

“I am… I am here to serve, Princess.” The only thing he wanted to serve were the goats back in Ordon. She set her candle down on a nearby table and approached him.

“I would like you to take up residence with me in the castle here,” she told him, “and we could lead Hyrule together.”

He stared at her, dumbfounded. He was a simple farm boy, raised on the outskirts of Hyrule, skilled in only herding goats and shooting slingshots with children. When she noticed his expression, she chuckled lightly.

“Before you were given the role of the hero, you were to deliver me a sword, or so I was told,” she looked at him through thick eyelashes and ran her hand up his arm. “So I believe that we were destined to meet anyway, and perhaps destined to be together.”

“No,” he said, and the firmness in his voice shocked even himself. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have to go home.” He didn’t know what he had to do, but he knew what he wanted to do.

“You don’t have to,” she replied. “You could stay here with me. You and I… we’re alike in many ways, I think. We have made countless sacrifices, and we both lost a dear friend.”

“A friend,” Link muttered. “She wasn’t just a friend to me.”

“Oh?”

“I…” his face contorted into something of anguish and his hands balled into fists until his nails dug into the skin of his palms. “I loved her.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this!” His breathing became erratic, tears resurfacing when he thought he lost them all, and his chest rose and fell dramatically. “I want to go home.” His voice was broken, cracked.

Silence.

Then, “I see.” Said so lowly he barely heard it, but the hurt that etched her voice was evident. He watched her fade out of the candlelight, her silhouette reaching for the doorknob. “Goodnight, Hero.”

“No, wait.” His hand shot out to grab the sleeve of her nightgown and he tugged lightly, eliciting a small gasp from her. “Stay.”

“Why should I stay with you when you will not stay with me?” she bit.

“Because… because I need you. Please. Just for the night.”

Her heart fluttered when he spoke those words, but she knew he didn’t need her because he loved her. He needed her because he didn’t know how to cope.

She couldn’t understand why she was so taken by the Hero Link. He was dashing, yes, but she was more smitten with how he was—how he carried himself, spoke, how he felt. When they rode Epona to victory on the battlefield, she felt something ignite in her chest, and when he struck Ganondorf down, it blossomed into a flame.

“I will stay,” she said, and took a seat on the chair next to his bed. 

“No, no. You lay in the bed.”

“What?”

“You’re the princess.”

“That means nothing, not when I can’t execute my role properly.”

“I will sit. It’s fine.”

She sighed and crawled into the bed while he replaced her in the chair.

They spoke until one of them fell asleep about their lives, their journeys, and how they ended up sleeping in the same room. 

Deep into the night, when even the castle itself no longer creaked, she woke to the sound of him crying, fussing in his chair and mumbling nonsense.

“Link?” she called, leaning carefully over the bed. He tossed his head and let out a choked sob.

“Midna—”

She tapped him quickly, trying to release him from his nightmare, and when it didn’t work she shook his shoulders. When that proved futile, she shouted, asking him to please wake up.

He did.

His eyes shot open and his body lurched forward. His face was covered in sweat and his hands shakily gripped the chair. He whipped his head to face the Princess and his eyes darted around her face, nervously scanning, but he didn’t know what for. He sputtered words, asking who, what, when, where, finally groaning and gripping his head with a hand.

“You’re okay,” she cooed, voice smooth as silk. “It was just a nightmare.”

“No… no, it wasn’t just… it’ll never be just a nightmare.”

“Hero—”

“It was so real.”

He woke her once more with his thrashings that night, but he settled himself until he was only weeping in his sleep.

In the morning, he noticed Princess Zelda was no longer in his chambers, and she took her candle with her. White sunlight drifted through the singular window in the chamber and cast itself on a part of the cold floor where he chose to stand and stretch. His fingers drifted over his cheeks, whereupon he felt a dryness reminiscent of old tears. He glanced down at his green tunic, thrown haphazardly on the floor, almost a little too carelessly for a holy garment granted to him by the Goddesses.

He wanted to step on it. He wanted to burn it until there was nothing left. 

He leaned down and scooped it off the floor. He held it up to the window, blocking the morning sun.

Link was not a hero. He didn’t want to be. He wanted to be a simple goat herder from the village of Ordon, where he played with the children and helped the local pregnant woman with her household duties. He wanted to clean his horse in the spring just outside the village and go on walks with his mentor Rusl. Without Midna, he had no purpose.

He slid the tunic on over his head and fastened it around his waist with a belt. After putting his boots on, he scoured the room for his hat. He felt almost naked without it, and it was the one thing he wanted to keep of his goddessforsaken outfit.

He searched for his beloved hat until a guard came knocking at his door, telling him Zelda requested him in the throne room.

So he went, and as he went, he caught himself covering the back of his head with his hand or scratching and patting it. He missed his green stocking cap.

Walking through the castle where he once battled many a fearsome foe was peculiar now, because it didn’t seem as foreboding and dangerous anymore—now, it was just a partially destroyed castle bustling with guards, servants, and construction crews. The Princess certainly wasted no time in reclaiming her kingdom.

When he finally reached the throne room, situated grandly at one of the castle’s highest points, he was surprised to find it void of any people except for her. The only sound in the air was the light breeze and his breathing as he walked the stretch of the room to where she sat, a tiny figure on a large throne.

He knew it was there that she gave up her kingdom, and now here she was taking it back.

“Hero,” she greeted when he finally drew close. “I trust that you found your way to me without problem?”

“Yes.”

The hero was a man of few words.

“Hero—Link, do you see what I have regained?”

“Hyrule.”

“No,” she said. “I have regained a broken shell of what once was Hyrule, and now I’m expected to piece it back together by myself.” She let go of any sort of regal manners she had and tore her crown off her head. The hero watched in silent shock as she threw it to the ground and it broke into dozens of shards just like the mirror did only a day ago. Gripping her hair in her fist and groaning, she refocused her gaze on him and he saw bloodshot eyes.

“What am I to do, Link?”

It wasn’t rhetorical.

“I don’t know, Princess.”

“You don’t know… Goddesses above, of course you don’t know.” She rose from her seat and strode up to him, hands behind her back. “But you could.”

“No, I couldn’t.” He backed away.

“You saved Hyrule once already,” she remarked, “so why can’t you do it again?”

“I have to go home.”

“Why?” she pressed. “Why do you have to? Link, please, I can’t do this by myself. I need someone. I need you.”

He knew why, but he lied anway.

“The children in the village… they—they need me.”

“I need you.”

Link sucked in a breath. Then, “No, you don’t.”

She stared at him, shocked at his defiance. Slowly, she moved her hands from behind her back and his breath caught in his throat.

“I have what you want,” she said mockingly. It lay limp in her hands, ever so tantalizing, a deep forest green, torn and dirty.

He reached out for it, but she pulled back.

“Give it to me,” he demanded, barely above a whisper.

She began to cry. “Link, Hero, please. I can’t do this by myself and you—you’re the most capable person I know.”

“You don’t know me.”

The next thing he knew, she was kneeling before him, grasping his legs in her hands and rocking back and forth. She cried.

It was all so wrong. The most powerful woman in Hyrule, the Princess Zelda, was on her knees before him, an insignificant farmhand, and she was begging _him._ Tangled locks, red eyes, on her knees, she had let go of any dignity simply because of him. He decided he didn’t need his hat anymore.

“I’m sorry, Princess,” he murmured beneath her sobs. “Goodbye.”

He backed away out of the throne room, covering his face with his hand and taking one last glance back. He left her there, on the floor, where her tears stained his stocking cap.

The forest smelled like home. It smelled like fresh pine and subtly of a past rainfall and to his animalistic instincts, it smelled like prey. Squirrels and mice, tiny forest creatures; he could smell them, even from atop Epona, where sometimes the branches scratched his face and leaves tangled in his dirty blond hair. He had passed the lantern oil salesman Coro, still seated in his little log chair with his back hunched, fire still crackling under his pot. It made Link wonder if all that much had really changed.

He trotted past the entrance to the cave through which he had chased Talo and into the small, overgrown tunnel that led to Faron Spring. Clear, sparkling water fed by a small waterfall, topped with large trees through which the sunlight filtered, casting its rays upon the small white flowers among the grass. 

It was peaceful.

He stopped Epona by the water’s edge and hopped down. He stroked her mane and patted her side. He knew even after everything he’d been through and would go through, his trusted steed would never leave his side. 

He rolled his pants up to his knees and waded into the shallow spring, his eyes closed and arms outstretched. The forest breeze, one he missed, felt so good on his skin and he wished he could melt into it. With his eyes still closed, he submerged his cupped hands into the water and splashed his face and wetted his hair.

Then he remembered.

He pulled his hair back from his forehead and opened his eyes to stare at his reflection in the sacred water and besides the bags under his eyes, he noticed something else.

There, on his forehead, was a dark scar shaped like the Shadow Crystal used to imprison Link in his wolf form. 

He was crying again, but he was crying because now he had a piece of her, and he didn’t care how malicious that piece was because it was _her_.

He cried until the sun set and the waters he laid in no longer glowed with its light.

For most of the ride home from the spring, he couldn’t bring himself to stop touching his forehead. It was right there—she was right. There. And he couldn’t touch her, see her, hear her. She was gone.

He almost rode past Ordon Spring, but he was lucky enough to be paying attention because now she was there.

Wading in its waters, splashing her face and wetting her hair, muttering to herself was Ilia. He halted Epona suddenly and roughly, almost diving off his saddle and tripping over himself to run to her.

She turned around, eyes wide in surprise and mouth dropped in shock.

He stopped just short of hugging her and his mouth hung open because he couldn’t find the words.

“Link,” she breathed. Tentatively, she walked up to him and pressed her hands on the sides of his face. “Am I dreaming?”

Bringing his hand to cover one of hers, he smiled. “No.”

When he arrived home—

Home. Did he have a home? Because nothing felt quite like it did before, like a detail was always off and something was always missing. His strongest desire was to return to Ordon so why did it feel so very wrong? He wondered if he really belonged. 

“The children really miss you, Link.” Ilia broke the silence with her soft, reserved voice, twiddling her thumbs and nervously glancing around. 

“I visited them whenever I could in Kakariko,” he said, “and Malo had his shop in Castle Town—”

“No, Link,” she interrupted. “They miss _you_.”

“Oh.”

It was silent again.

Why did he feel like an intruder in his own home? The pictures on the wall, the layered rugs, the ladders—they all felt foreign. 

“Y’know, the goats really miss you too. They don’t really… behave…” her voice trailed off. She didn’t know what to say either. “Ugh, Link. Something’s wrong.”

“Yeah,” he replied in a whisper. He laid his sword, still sheathed, against a wall by the door and abandoned his shield on the floor next to it.

“Tell me,” she demanded. “You can always tell me.”

“Ilia…” he stared at her with sad, broken eyes, eyes that were once as bright as the sky, that once glimmered with happiness and content. “I don’t know if I can.” Now, his eyes were dull.

“...Fine,” she muttered. “I won’t pressure you.”

He took off his forest green tunic and held it out in front of him. He stared.

“Hey,” she flicked his arm. “You good?”

He blinked. “Yeah… I’m fine.” He threw it on the floor and looked at her. “I’m going to go to bed, Ilia.”

“Oh.”

Nervously, she rubbed her arm, bit her lip. “Link, um…”

“What?”

“Could I… spend the night here? With you?”

They weren’t strangers, so why did they speak to each other so awkwardly?

“I only have one bed,” he said in a confused tone.

“That’s what I mean,” she replied, stepping closer to him. “I have a hard time sleeping alone. It’s embarrassing, because I’m strong enough and I’m independent so I know I can, but lately I’ve had these awful dreams—nightmares, I suppose—and I can barely get a good night’s rest, so I was just wondering if—”

He gently grabbed her hand. “Yes. Yes, Ilia. It’s fine.”

They laid in his bed together, and she wondered if it would really be beneficial to her sleep when she could barely calm her racing heart. He laid on his side facing away from her, but the bed was so tiny that they were still almost cuddling, but she knew it wasn’t supposed to be romantic, yet when he had grabbed her hand to comfort her she wondered if they could be more. 

She was about to drift off to sleep at last when she heard a soft thud. Cracking one eye open, she watched Link smack his pillow with a tense, closed fist. He made small sounds, like he was crying, and when she leaned over to see his face she saw the tear streaks illuminated by the moon.

He had nightmares too. 

He was mumbling something through his tears so she leaned down to listen.

“Midna…”

She rolled back onto her side and wondered who Midna must have been to him that he could dream so vividly of her.

She made him pumpkin soup in the morning.

Ilia figured that after all his arduous traveling it was best to let him sleep, even if his snoring was obnoxiously loud and she had to leave the house a few times to escape it. 

When Link finally did wake up, it was almost noon and the aroma of the soup had filled his nose and summoned him to his little kitchen. From her spot in the tiny treehouse, she watched him sluggishly trudge to the bubbling pot and pick up the ladle. He looked so exhausted, his eyes dark and the bags intense. His mouth was curved in a frown and his hair was disheveled.

It was so shockingly unlike him. 

He spooned some of the soup into a wooden bowl and turned around.

“You made this?” he asked, and his voice was coarse and textured like tree bark.

“Yes.”

And her voice was such a contrast to his; soft, smooth, light. Untouched by war.

He sat down at the table and swirled the soup with a spoon, staring at it with dead eyes. When he finally lifted some of the thick liquid to his lips, he felt bliss. 

He felt at home.

“It’s good,” he said after a while. “I missed it.”

He turned around in his chair and said to her, “I missed you.”

She absently picked at her fingernail. “I missed you too,” she replied in a whisper.

He smiled and went back to devouring his soup.

“Um, this morning Fado from the ranch came by. He wants to know if you can help herd goats tomorrow.”

Goat herding.

He’d just saved Hyrule, and now they wanted him to herd goats.

Why did it seem so ridiculous to him? Why did it seem so insulting when it was all he wanted?

“Sure, not a problem,” he said through a mouthful of hot soup.

The village children had begged him to tell them stories of his travels. Despite what they’d been through, they remained mostly the same. Loud, annoying, but lovable.

Why couldn’t he be as strong as them?

“Don’t hold back, either!” Talo said, faking some punches. “I want to hear about all the gross stuff.”

“I don’t know if I can tell you any of the gross stuff,” he told them. “It might be too much.”

Yet, when Colin tugged on his arm and said that they could handle it because they were brave like him, he couldn’t help but recount his journey.

So he told them.

He told them about the poisonous monsters of the Forest Temple in Faron Woods and the blistering magma of the Goron Mines and how he had to sumo wrestle to gain access.

When Talo asked Link to teach him how to wrestle like that, he firmly told him no.

Link took a deep breath, looked at his surroundings. A small bridge arching over a stream, bright sunlight making it shimmer, people tending to their pumpkins.

Ordon was so small. So fragile. He hoped it would never know the stain of loss.

He told them about his imp companion, how they travelled around Hyrule together and unraveled its mysteries and solved its puzzles. He told them about the biting cold of Snowpeak and the arid heat of the Gerudo Desert, where he fought the dead. He told them about how he infiltrated Hyrule Castle and saved the Princess.

“Oh, that’s so romantic!” Beth chirped. “The hero saving the princess. It’s straight out of a storybook.”

Talo made a gagging sound and stuck a finger in his mouth.

Link only smiled and nodded.

It was the furthest thing from romantic.

“What happened to your friend?” Colin quietly asked. 

“My friend?”

“The imp.”

Link ran his fingers over his forehead, searching for the right words.

“She went home.”

“Oh.”

His mind was scrambling. He just wanted Midna.

“I want to hear more about the princess!” Beth begged. “Pleeeeeease.”

“Of course… the princess,” Link mumbled. His thoughts were becoming messy, each one colliding with the next, and he became lightheaded. “She was…”

He fainted.

He felt something cold and damp touch his face, something prod his arm. There was talking, but it was muffled and indistinct. He saw nothing but blackness.

“...be fine.”

“But what if…”

He blinked open his eyes. It was blurry, so he blinked again, and the face of a woman staring down at him became clearer. Her face was clouded with worry and her brows were furrowed in concern.

He groaned, brought his hand to his forehead.

“Oh, Link,” the woman above him said, “you’ve finally come to.”

Uli. Her name was Uli.

“I… huh?”

“You fainted. The children came and got me. You’re in my house now.”

“Oh.” He sat up, looked at her. Her belly was swollen, but nowhere near as big as it had been when he’d left Ordon. “You…”

She laughed lightly and rubbed a hand over her belly. “Yes, Link.” She gestured to a cradle in the center of the room. “Do you want to meet her?”

He nodded and she helped him out of bed and to the little cradle. She placed a finger over her mouth and looked at him with happy eyes, so excited to show off her pride and joy, napping cutely in the cradle he’d retrieved for her so long ago.

As he stared at the baby, eyes wide, he was fascinated with how life continued even when he wasn’t around.

He knew Midna wasn’t dead or gone. He knew she was still out there, milling about her realm and serving as its ruler, but in his world, she was dead. Yet her life still went on without him.

She brought Link to a table where she served him some bread and water before sitting down across from him. “You’ve got something on your forehead,” she told him, “and I tried to wipe it off but it was very stubborn.”

“Don’t wipe it off,” he said. “I like it.”

“What is it?” she asked. “It must mean something if you like it so much.”

“I can’t tell you.” Her face fell. “I’m sorry. I think I need to go. Thank you for taking care of me.”

As he stood and walked to the door, Uli held her head in her hands and sighed. “You and Rusl. Always so secretive.”

He was surprised to walk into the darkness of the night, illuminated only by the moon and its stars in the sky. Ordon was dead quiet except for the sound of the grass being shaken by the breeze and owls hooting in the night. He tiptoed through the village, still worried a skeletal beast might pop up and maul him like so many tried to do in Hyrule Field. 

He was thankful to have been unconscious during the hours of twilight.

He climbed the ladder into his humble treehouse, shutting the door softly behind him only to be startled by Ilia knitting in front of the fireplace.

“Oh, you’re home,” she said.

Spoken so familiarly, like they were married.

“Yes, I am,” he replied dumbly. 

“I heard you fainted when you were with the children.”

“I did, unfortunately.”

“But Uli took care of you?”

“Yes. Fed me bread and all.”

Ilia smiled and set her knitting on the floor. She wandered to the small kitchenette where she picked up a stack of letters.

“The postman came by,” she stated. “I don’t think he’s ever delivered anything all the way out here before, but he must’ve made an exception for someone as important as you.” She handed the letters to him and he accepted them into his own calloused hands.

“Thank you.”

She went back to her knitting and he thumbed through the letters, most of them promotions from Malo Mart, until he came upon one sealed with a red wax stamped with the Triforce. His heart fell to his stomach.

He just wanted to be left alone.

_Dear Link,_

_I hope you are doing well in Ordon. I would like to apologize for the display you saw in the throne room the other day. That is not who I am._

_I can’t do this without you. You took on what I could not, and it proves that you are the only one fit to rule beside me. You saved my kingdom so why should I, an incompetent princess, rule what I could not save? If you were by my side, Hyrule could rebuild itself to what it was before._

_I know you may not believe me when I say it, Hero of Twilight, but I love you. I plead that you accept my offer to be Hyrule’s king._

_I will be waiting for you at the castle._

_Signed,_

_Princess Zelda_

King. What a silly idea. He was not fit for any role such as that, any role that included leadership and confidence. For her to say that she loved him when they barely knew each other convinced him she was using him as a publicity stunt.

He crumpled the letter up and tossed it in his crude wooden waste bin. 

“What were they?” Ilia asked, not looking up from her knitting.

“Just Malo Mart advertisements,” he said, and it wasn’t entirely a lie.

He knew Ilia could never lay an eye on that letter. It would crush her to see a woman declaring her love for him, especially when she didn’t know that he despised the woman so carelessly writing those words.

He loved Ilia.

But he also loved Midna.

He sighed and dragged himself over to Ilia, plopping down behind her and resting his head on her shoulder.

He fell asleep to the sensation of her fingers in his hair.

The next morning, when he washed himself in the Ordon Spring, he made sure to stop for a few moments and gaze at his forehead. It was his way of saying good morning to her.

He snapped out of it when Ilia stopped by with Epona to bathe her. 

Blushing, she said, “Geez, Link. Put on a shirt.”

“No,” he huffed. “I’m herding goats today. It gets too hot with one on.”

“Whatever,” she mumbled and began attending to Epona. “Y’know, you should wash your own horse.”

“You beat me to it,” was all he said before dunking his head under the water.

He forgot how relaxing goat herding was, because once he’d finished the day’s work he got to lounge around the ranch and stare at the sky while Epona grazed nearby. He refocused his attention on the present when he saw Fado walking up to him.

“Thanks for yer help,” he said. He also forgot how dirty ranch work was, because Fado was positively caked in dirt and other brown substances. “You can go on home now if ya’d like.”

Link smiled, nodded, and let his back hit the ground so he could stare at the sky some more.

When he did finally leave, the sun was setting, and he chose to walk Epona out instead of ride her. The pair leisurely walked on the path back to the village, and Link spoke to her and wondered if she could still understand him outside of his wolf form.

He was greeted by Ilia lazing on the ground near her father, Mayor Bo’s, house.

“You didn’t scratch her this time, did you?” she asked, half genuine and half joking.

It felt like he suddenly got slapped in the face, being forced to recall a time that felt like it was eons ago, when everything was quiet and normal.

“You remember?” he asked.

She laughed and nodded. “Of course I do. No point in regaining my memory if I can’t regain it all, right?”

His chuckle was colored with nervousness. “Right.”

“Don’t you miss it?” Ilia questioned. “When everything was how it used to be. Normal is the word, I guess.”

“I do.”

“Do you miss what we had?”

She spoke as though they lost the spark they once had.

“We still have it,” he replied quietly.

She got up from the ground and walked over to him, taking his hands in her own. Without looking up at him, she asked, “You really think so?”

He nodded.

She kissed him.

His shock quickly dissipated as he melted into it and cupped her face with his dirty hands.

He missed her.

They had a fire that night in front of his treehouse, a pathetic blaze fueled by a few tree branches. Into the fire he cast his green tunic, and neither of them said anything.

Then she spoke. “Why?”

“I hate it.”

He burned away his past.

They laid together once more, staring at the stars through the window. They were content.

“There’s something you need to know,” Link said suddenly.

“What?” she murmured, almost a low hum.

“I… on my journey… I met a woman.”

She stiffened in his arms.

“Her name was Midna.”

And she recalled the night where she watched him smack his pillow and cry and whimper her name.

“She was with me for my whole journey,” he explained, “and at the end of it she just… left. And I—”

“You loved her,” Ilia interrupted quietly. 

“Yes.” His voice was just as quiet, if not quieter.

“I understand, I think,” she said, and he was surprised because usually she jumped to her own conclusions and ran with them. “I would probably fall in love if I had an adventure with someone, too.”

He kissed the top of her head.

“But I love you,” he reassured her.

“I love you too.”

Time and the challenges it brought with it changed both of them. Ilia gained understanding and patience while Link had only felt loss. He didn’t know who he was anymore or what he wanted.

He decided it was okay to float through life for a little while.

Yet, even as he slept and despite his reassurances, Ilia couldn’t help but think about Midna. She didn’t know who Midna was or if the woman reciprocated his feelings. Behind her facade was a jealousy she didn’t know how to cope with because deep in the back of her mind she wondered if he was lying to her.

Link and Ilia spent many hot, sunny days cooking for the other and bathing together in the spring, splashing each other with water and exchanging kisses before Link went to wrangle the goats.

She wished none of it had ever happened—none of his journey, none of her amnesia, none of Midna, because then she could love him without doubt. She could love him as the simple man she knew him to be, someone who played with the village children and helped the local pregnant woman with her household duties. She could love him as the man that needed a wake-up call every morning because he was such a heavy sleeper, as the man that was so carefree he couldn’t even notice when his horse was injured.

As the man who cared for her so much that he helped her recover her lost memories.

She threw away her doubts one day when they were sitting in the spring together, holding hands and kissing and she asked him:

“Will you marry me?”

He loved her.

And because he loved her, he crumpled Zelda’s letters to him and hid them in the little nooks and crannies around his house, because he didn’t want to throw them away. Something inside him wanted to keep them and read them over every now and then, anytime his mind might stray to the idea of being the king, so that he could remind himself of his distaste for the now queen.

Each new letter he received became more and more riddled with desperation and confusion, loss and anger. It was clear to him that Queen Zelda was overwhelmed with her duties and didn’t know how to handle it, and so she begged in more undignified ways each time. And, every time without fail, she professed her love to him and begged him to come home to her. Yes, she used the word home so carelessly, so recklessly, because he finally understood where his home was and it was not with her.

He made it a point to rise earlier than Ilia so that he could greet the postman who didn’t care who he handed the letters off to even though he knew the importance they carried. Sometimes, Link wondered if the Malo Mart promotions were only in the mix to hide the fact that one specific letter always carried the royal seal.

Maybe the postman was a little considerate after all.

Or maybe Malo didn’t understand the concept of spam.

Whatever the reason, he was grateful that Malo chose to advertise his shop so aggressively.

Ordonian weddings, despite the modesty of the town on the surface, were a big deal. The entire village was decorated with white banners and flower garlands. The aroma of various pumpkin dishes filled the air and the ranch, with its wide open field, was the perfect venue for the ceremony. 

Dozens of chairs and a humble wooden arch were situated in the green expanse with a makeshift rug laid down as the aisle. Link had already herded the goats into the stable that day and now he was cleaning himself in the Ordon Spring, where he and his spouse would later be taken to receive a blessing.

But, for now, they stood in the spring and splashed each other.

It was what he always thought he was destined for—a simple life, free of any worries, married to his childhood friend in his hometown. 

Needless to say he was disappointed when Uli and Sera came and took Ilia away to prepare her for the ceremony, and he was left alone in the spring.

With nothing else to do, he stared at his scar and said, “I love you.”

She didn’t respond, because he was alone and the air was empty and the woods were stagnant, and because she wasn’t there.

He stood there in front of the entire village, clad in a nice white tunic cinched at his waist with a brown belt, watching her glide down the aisle.

She was like an angel. It was a bright and sunny day, and she shined even brighter than the very sun that made her figure glow.

She wore the simplest white dress; no lace, no gems, just white fabric and a simple necklace, green like her eyes.

He tried his best to ignore Mayor Bo’s ugly crying in the front row.

When she finally stood across from him, they exchanged vows and Link told her that she was his only love.

They listened to Fado drone on about the usual wedding stuff, which were things neither of them cared about.

Yet as he spoke, Link couldn’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like if it was Midna standing across from him. Perhaps she wouldn’t be dressed in white but a dark blue, and her hair would be up instead of clasped together below her chin.

“You may now kiss the bride.”

So he did.

“I’m so tired,” Ilia groaned back at his—no, their—house. She kicked off her painful shoes and flopped on the bed.

“Too much food?” he asked, following her.

“Too much everything,” she answered. 

He lightly kissed her, then more, then more, and more and more and more until she pressed a hand to his naked chest.

“Are we going to…?”

“Do you want to?”

He brushed a strand of hair out of her face. She hummed in thought.

Her answer was a strong grip on his head and another kiss.

“Good morning,” she yawned, rolling over in his arms. She held a hand to his face. “Husband.”

She sighed, and her contentment made him swell with love.

“I can finally call you that after so long,” she said with a smile. Her eyes sparkled in the rising sun and he kissed her cheek without saying anything in response.

He got out of bed and peered out the window, panic setting in when he saw the postman.

“Oh, I can go get the mail today,” she said. “You must be tired after last night.”

“No. No, it’s fine, really,” he said in a rush, and he slid down the ladders and went outside to retrieve the mail.

Promotions and a royal letter once again.

When he came back inside, Ilia stood there with an eyebrow cocked and her hands on her hips.

“Why can’t I get the mail sometimes?”

“Because… I like to. The postman and I—we—we talk. Sometimes.”

“Okay.” She frowned and squinted at him skeptically.

When he came back from herding goats that afternoon, Ilia was sat on the floor with the Master Sword in her lap, still sheathed much to his relief, but in her lap nonetheless.

“Don’t touch that,” he told her. He swiped it from her lap and set it back against the wall.

“Don’t you have to put that back sometime?” she asked. 

“Yes… I will, eventually. But not—not today.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think I’m ready to let go yet.”

That night, he had another nightmare, and she rocked him back and forth until he stopped weeping and saying her name.

Midna.

Over dinner one evening, Ilia asked him something.

“Can you tell me more about Midna?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Please.” 

She set her hand atop his and fiddled with his ring.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

He swallowed, prepared himself, touched his forehead.

He told her. He told her about who Midna really was and the things she could do and see, how in the twilight he would abandon his humanity and become a wolf at her command, how Midna wasn’t actually a strange imp but rather a beautiful princess with otherworldly powers, and he told her about the Mirror of Twilight and its absence in their realm. He told her about how, as far as the world of light was concerned, Midna was dead.

The only thing she could say at the end was “Oh.”

Then one night, in the comfort of their bed, she asked him, “Do you still love her?”

And he hesitated to answer because he didn’t want to lie, but he knew the truth would sting, and he knew she was asking if he loved Midna and not her, but still he responded with a quiet “Yes.”

She didn’t move or show any acknowledgement to his answer. Eventually, her body was dead weight in his arms, her chest rising and falling with each light snore. When he ran the back of his hand over her cheek, it was wet.

“Sorry.”

The next morning, when he woke, she was not in bed with him, which was odd because he was usually the early riser. He nudged the covers, which had been thrown over him, to the side and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He climbed down the ladders and hit the ground floor with a soft _thump._ He stretched, flexing his body and his toned arms high above his head. When he turned around, she was standing next to the door with a carefully sealed envelope in her hand.

“Good mor—”

“What is this?” she hissed. She held the letter out and shook it in front of him. Slowly, carefully, like he was approaching a bloodthirsty wolf (but wasn’t that him?), he went up to her and took the letter out of her tight grip. He broke the seal and pulled the parchment out.

“I do not love her,” Link answered before she could ask.

“Two women?” Her voice was defeated. In her mind, she would never be enough, and the letter only confirmed that notion that settled now in the front of her mind.

“No.”

“Is this what you’ve been hiding from me? Is this why you always insist on accepting the mail?”

“I…”

“Yes or no, Link,” she whispered. She wiped furiously at her eyes.

Dejectedly, “Yes.” He let the letter fall to the floor as he took her hands in his. “I do not love her.”

“Then why does she send you letters almost every week?”

“Because she loves me.”

No, she didn’t. He knew Princess Zelda was desperate for someone to help her regain the trust of her citizens, and who better to do it than the Hero that saved her realm? She framed it under the pretense of love in the hopes of roping him back to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Are you really?”

Her words bit. Hard.

“You could tell me so easily about how much you loved one princess, but you couldn’t tell me about the other one that is actively sending you love letters? Begging you to come _home_?”

“That’s not—”

“I am not stupid, Link. I can understand more than you know, but you seem to think I’m not ready to handle your trauma.”

“No, you’re not.”

“We are married. Husband and wife. For better or for worse. I’m supposed to be here for you, so why can’t you let me do what I’m supposed to?”

“Because I’m scared.”

“Scared of what? Me discovering your emotional affair with Princess Zelda?”

He wanted to tell her she was queen now and not just princess.

“Scared of losing you, too.”

She stared at him. Then, she walked up to him, and hugged him.

Together they cried.

The next time he received a letter from Queen Zelda, he was going to let Ilia read it with him. Instead, the paper was wordless, and inside the parcel that came with it was his hat, clean and neatly folded. It amazed him how Queen Zelda seemed to know when he gave up because she gave up at the same time. The hat was her surrender. 

He cried alone but into Ilia’s arms.

“Darling,” he said to her, “I’m going to return the sword.”

“Really?” she asked from against his chest. They looked at it, sheathed and clean, just sitting against the wall.

“It’s time for me to let go of it.”

“When will you be back?”

“By sundown. I promise.”

Somehow, she knew he wasn’t telling the truth, but which part was a lie she didn’t know.

He ran his hand through her hair, kissed the top of her head. She strapped the sheath to him and ran her hand over it.

She kissed him goodbye and he, in turn, kissed her belly.

He never stopped wondering what it could’ve been like if it was Midna instead of Ilia.

He took Epona into the village to get Rusl’s trusty golden cucco and when questioned as to why he needed it, Link only gestured at the sword on his back and Rusl understood.

When Link rode back through his clearing, he said goodbye to Ilia once more, and she stood there and watched him leave without saying anything. She wondered if she would ever stop waiting for his return.

Epona carried the Hero through Faron Woods, where he stopped at the spring to stare at himself one last time and subsequently her. He washed his face, asked for a blessing from the spirits, and moved on.

He left Epona outside the cave leading deep into the Woods and it was there that he rid her of her saddle. He gave her a kiss on the nose, patted her mane, and said goodbye.

He navigated the poisonous fog of Faron Woods, coughing and hacking, but eventually made his way to the Forest Temple where he finally employed the cucco and flew down to the Sacred Grove.

It was odd wandering the Grove when he couldn’t hear the mocking laughter of Skull Kid or his blaring horn. However, it was peaceful, almost ethereal, like he’d entered another world disconnected from his own, much like the Twilight Realm.

He made it to the pedestal where he was to lay the Master Sword to rest and when he unsheathed and poised it over the pedestal, its glow faintly surged. Once, then twice, then it stopped, like it wanted to say something to him but it couldn’t.

Slowly, hesitantly, he dropped it into the slot. Its home. It had served its purpose and it was therefore no longer necessary.

Much like him.

Even after it was all said and done, he didn’t know what he wanted. Midna forever held his heart, and he stared at the Master Sword in its pedestal and weeped for her.

He left the pedestal and wandered the Sacred Grove, and some say you can still hear the quiet murmurings of her name.

Time passed, Ilia’s belly swelled, Zelda’s letters ceased, and Ordon Village faded into obscurity. Yet on its quiet, surviving breath, you can still hear the hushed rumors about a man who mourned until he rotted into the earth.


End file.
